In a hall carrying Ben Turok’s name – activist, theorist, moral compass – I listened to Zane Dangor’s lecture and felt something beyond politics. What he set out was not just a diplomatic briefing. It was a moral call, a reminder of the spiritual obligations that sit beneath international law and political struggle.

Ben would have recognised this moment. He always said that if we abandon ethics, we lose our compass. Our struggle against apartheid was not only political, it was also profoundly moral. It was grounded in religiosity, collective dignity, prophetic truth-telling, and a refusal to accept any hierarchy of human worth.

That is precisely what today’s global conflict is about.

The world is not simply shifting. It is being shaken by forces that reject equality, deny accountability, and believe openly that some lives are disposable. In such a moment, to defend humanity is not only political; it is spiritual.

South Africa’s ICJ case was not just a legal act. It was an ethical intervention a refusal to bow to global Pharaohs.

And now we face two tasks:

1. Hold the line internationally.

2. Rebuild moral leadership at home.

Because the battle ahead is not just geopolitical. It is for the soul of our democracy, and indeed, the soul of global civilisation.

Trumpism: A New Golden Calf

Many analysts mistake Trumpism for a personality cult. It is far deeper. It is a worldview that treats the poor with contempt, migrants as invaders, Muslims as threats, and the environment as expendable. Its intellectual engine comes from billionaires like Peter Thiel, who argues openly that he does not believe “freedom and democracy are compatible” and that enfranchised masses particularly women and Black people undermine the freedom of capital.

This worldview is not simply political. It is theological, in the worst sense. It worships wealth.It sanctifies power.It replaces compassion with dominance.

It is the resurrection of the Golden Calf, a civilisation kneeling before money and muscle, while the vulnerable are cast aside.

In Islamic language, it is a revival of taghut, false gods of human construction, wealth, empire, violence.

Project 2025 is the scripture of this new idolatry: purge institutions, centralise authority, rollback equality, legalise cruelty, elevate the powerful, silence the poor.

Against this, the world needs a liberation theology for the 21st century.

A moral politics that says:the orphan matters, the refugee matters, the poor matter, Palestinians matter, Sudanese and Congolese lives matter, migrants matter, women matter, queer people matter, humanity is indivisible.

This is not left ideology. It is Qur’anic, Biblical, Rabbinic ethics: “We sent you as a mercy to the worlds” (Qur’an 21:107). “Let justice roll down like waters” (Amos 5:24). “You shall not oppress the stranger, for you were strangers in Egypt” (Exodus 22:21).

The Global South stands today as the last coherent witness to this moral tradition.

Ben Turok: Reform Multilateralism, Do Not Abandon It

Ben Turok never romanticised global institutions. He knew their colonial DNA. But he also understood a profound truth: If you are small or oppressed, you need rules. Without multilaterally agreed norms: apartheid would have endured longer, sanctions would not have passed, liberation movements would have stayed isolated.

Ben believed: reform the system, democratise it, expand it, but never let the world slip into “power decides”.

Today, we face that exact danger.

At the G20, the new reality is visible: G7 + BRICS+ + the unaligned middle. The future will be written by those middle powers in Africa, Latin America, South-East Asia who refuse to be bullied into silence, but also refuse to fall into simplistic non-alignment.

Traditional non-alignment is insufficient.It has become a posture, not a project.

We need a new stance: Principled Non-Alignment with Purpose

Not neutrality. Not avoidance. Not passivity.

A values-driven middle power bloc that widens the space between all empires and anchors it in law, justice, accountability, and dignity.

Ben Turok would have said:

“Stay in the room. Fight for every sentence. Make injustice uncomfortable. Expand the moral vocabulary of the world.”

This is precisely what South Africa did at the G20 pushing language on Palestine, occupation, inequality, and global governance reform. Every word negotiated is a stone placed in the foundation of global justice.

Diplomacy as Prophetic Disruption

Diplomacy is often described as stabilisation. But in a world built on inequality, stabilisation is often code for preserving injustice.

Modern diplomacy must become more than management; it must become prophetic dissent, grounded in values, ethics and solidarity.

This is liberation theology at the level of foreign policy:

Speak truth to empire. Defend the vulnerable. Expose hypocrisy. Resist idolatry of power. Make the last first.

Dangor described the bullying South Africa faced:visa threats, sanctions pressure, isolation tactics, narrative attacks.

But prophetic diplomacy doesn’t aim to please Caesar. Its aim is to defy Pharaoh, not to flatter him.

Holding the line means: refusing to sanitise occupation, refusing to dilute the language of apartheid, refusing to accept genocide as collateral damage, refusing to let war criminals hide behind procedural noise.

This is not anti-West. This is anti-impunity. This is anti-exceptionalism. This is pro-human.

And it is deeply spiritual.

East Africa: The Fragments of a Broken Solidarity

Dangor’s warning about East Africa is crucial. The region is being carved by foreign powers into zones of influence security deals, covert financing, elite capture, transactional diplomacy.It mirrors the old colonial doctrine: divide the Africans, rule the Africans, use the Africans.

But the moral implications are enormous.

A continent that once gave sanctuary to liberation movements is now being repositioned through debt, militarisation, and elite manipulation into a fragmented landscape unable to speak with one voice on Palestine, Sudan, Congo, climate or debt.

Here again, the spiritual and political fuse together.

Imam Shafi’i wrote: “Justice is the foundation upon which the world stands.”

If Africa is denied justice globally and fails to deliver justice domestically it will be spiritually hollowed out.

The prophetic call today is to rebuild a Pan-African ethic, not just a Pan-African institution.

Ending Impunity at Home and Abroad

We cannot fight genocide abroad while we tolerate corruption at home. We cannot oppose apartheid while running municipalities that reproduce apartheid spatiality. We cannot preach dignity while our own people live without water, land, safety, or food.

To hold the line internationally, we must strengthen the line domestically.

The Qur’an says: “Stand firmly for justice, even against yourselves” (4:135). The Bible says: “What does the Lord require of you? To act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly” (Micah 6:8).

This is not poetry. It is policy.

A South African foreign policy grounded in liberation theology demands:

• clean governance,
• honest leadership,
• dignified service delivery,
• protection of women and children,
• economic justice,
• environmental stewardship,
• and an end to elite impunity.

Otherwise, we become what we condemn.

A Middle Power Mandate: Build a Just Centre of Gravity

The most important strategic task ahead is building a values-driven middle power front, rooted in:

• legal equality,
• anti-racism,
• economic justice,
• climate fairness,
• human dignity.

This front must be the connective tissue between G7 and BRICS+, binding the international system to shared norms and preventing both Western imperial impunity and Eastern authoritarian excess.

This is not a naive moral dream.It is a geopolitical necessity.

When small and middle nations move together, they bend the world. When they move alone, they are bullied into silence.

Conclusion: A New Liberation Theology for a Fractured World

Ben Turok belonged to a generation that fused politics with spirituality not institutional religion, but ethical courage, compassion, solidarity, sacrifice, and the stubborn belief that every human being carries divine worth.

Today, we must recover that moral fire.

Against Trumpism, against genocide, against oligarchic idolatry, against neocolonial fragmentation, against democratic decay we must build a politics rooted in prophetic courage.

This generation’s liberation theology must say:

Human dignity is non-negotiable.

No people are disposable. No nation is above the law. No billionaire is a god. Justice is indivisible.

Africa will not be divided.

Palestine will not be erased.

The Global South will not be silent.

Ben Turok once said:

“It is not enough to analyse the world. You must insist it be better.”

In a world unravelling, our duty is not to retreat.

Our duty is to hold the line, widen the space for justice, and insist that the moral architecture of humanity, religious, spiritual, democratic is worth defending.

And worth transforming.

* Faiez Jacobs is a former  Member of Parliament, founder of The Transcendence Group, Capetonian, Activist, and Servant of the People.

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media. 

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